
Class __£±1±& 



Book. 



- 



JO 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE MINISTER AS 

A MAN 



By 

ANDREW GILLIES 



MATRICULATION DAY ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT THE BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF 
THEOLOGY, OCTOBER 8, 1913. 




CINCINNATI : JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 






Copyright, 1914, by 
Jennings and Graham 



MAR 30 1914 

©CI.A371130 



The Minister As a Man 



It has long since become a truism 
that personality counts. It counts 
above everything else in the work of 
the Christian ministry. It is that 
and not eloquence which at last gives 
wings to our words. It is that and 
not enthusiasm which at last gives 
weight to our deeds. Emerson said 
it when he wrote those well-known 
words, "What you are thunders so 
loud that I can not hear what you 
say." A. J. Gordon said it when 
he declared that in getting ready for 
Sunday his hardest task was not the 
preparation of his sermon, but the 
preparation of himself. Dr. King, 
of Oberlin, said it when he wrote 
something like this: "A Christian's 
[ 3 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

greatest work is not to go to men 
and speak to them about their souls. 
It is to live such a life and be such a 
man that when people are concerned 
about their souls they will want to 
come to him." And Phillips Brooks 
said it when he defined a sermon 
as "the truth through personality." 
They all said it, and the world knows 
it because it is fundamental. It is 
not the Epistles of Paul that live. 
It is Paul. It is not even the Gos- 
pels that weigh. It is the Christ. 
In the short, terse words of Henry 
Ward Beecher, "Manhood is the best 
sermon." 

It has not become so much of a 
truism that a minister's first business 
is to be a man. Now, I do not mean 
what is meant by being "a man 
among men." I have become suspi- 
cious of that fine flowing phrase, and 
[ 4 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

of much to which it seems to lead. 
The Church and ministry of to-day 
are suffering from an overdone prin- 
ciple of adaptation. I confess to a 
dislike to the term "mixer" as applied 
to the Christian minister. I despise 
the term "job" as applied to the 
Christian life among men. "There is 
a certain reserved and reticent dig- 
nity which will always be an essential 
element in our power among men." 
Familiarity still breeds contempt, and 
the way of irreverence is the way of 
disaster. 

It is ours to adapt ourselves to the 
times, but always in the spirit of the 
timeless. In the sway and swirl of 
things temporal it is the task of the 
Christian minister to breathe the 
spirit of the eternal. It is of vast 
significance that he who said, "I am 
all things to all men," could first say, 
[5] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

with perfect assurance, "I am cruci- 
fied with Christ." It is of vaster sig- 
nificance that He who knew men bet- 
ter than they knew themselves, who 
could eat with publican and sinner 
and not be strange among them, who 
could rouse a philosopher and charm 
a harlot into the higher life — it is of 
vaster significance that He could say, 
"The Father and I are one." 

Neither do I forget the immense 
importance of culture and scholar- 
ship and art. They are all no longer 
ministerial luxuries. They are min- 
isterial necessities. I knew a man 
who lost a call to a Church because 
of his slovenly appearance. I knew 
another who failed to hold the edu- 
cated men of his congregation be- 
cause of his wretched pronunciation. 
An education is not something which 
you may have if convenient. It is 
[ 6 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

something which you must have if 
you would be assured of a place of 
influence and leadership. The mat- 
ter of a sermon counts, and the form 
of a sermon counts, too. He who, 
like Father Taylor, loses his nomina- 
tive case in the pulpit, is in danger, 
unless of extraordinary native power, 
of losing his influence in the pew. 
Even the Methodists, who want their 
food hot, dislike to have the dishes 
rattle overmuch. 

In fact, I am not preaching the 
gospel of the good fellow. I am 
not blind to culture and scholarship 
as necessities in the equipment of 
our leaders. I am reminding you 
that preparation for the ministry is 
more than the preparation of the 
mind. It is that harder and holier 
task of the preparation of our total 
selves. We are called not so much 
[ 7 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

to do a peculiar kind of work as to 
live a certain quality of life. It is 
ours to go out and be a prophet, to 
learn the will of God for the race 
and interpret that will to the people. 
It is ours to go out and be a pastor, 
to "lead the sheep, carry the lambs, 
and once in awhile deal with an ob- 
streperous old ram." It is ours to 
go out and be an executive, to run 
the Christian Church with honest, 
business-like efficiency. But above 
all these and in all these, indeed, 
that all these may avail, it is ours 
to go out into the world and be a 
man, to interpret the love of God 
by what we are, to command a 
hearing with men by what we are, 
to uplift the cross and upbuild the 
Kingdom, not by what we say or 
what we do, but by what we are. 
Now, I know how primary it is 
[ 8 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

for me to say that. But I know, 
too, as somebody has said, that it is 
ours to learn what we know. The 
crucial thing for a student for the 
ministry is not his call's certainty, 
but its inclusions. It is not simply 
the question of source, but the ques- 
tion of moral objective. The min- 
isterial road is lined with those who 
have missed their way. Other pro- 
fessions are sprinkled with ex-min- 
isters. Adapting the picturesque 
words of Joseph Parker, some of 
them blared their way in like an 
amateur military band ; they coughed 
their way out like a squad of con- 
sumptive tramps. Making a man a 
minister does n't make him any dif- 
ferent, only more so. Let it also be 
understood that I speak as a learner, 
and not as a teacher. "I count not 
myself to have apprehended, but this 
[ 9 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

one thing I do." Hear me, then, 
while I touch our theme on some of 
its various sides. I know I will not 
say anything new. I hope to say 
much that is true. 

In the first place, the minister 
must be a man of Blameless Life. 
He must show to the world in every 
way that he really is a man of God. 
Horace Bushnell once said, "We 
preach too much and live Christ 
too little." I want to re-echo and 
reinforce the words of that great 
preacher. 

The world is very exacting toward 
the man who dares to preach. It asks 
of him not eloquence but sincerity, 
and looks to him for leadership in 
life. 

In his tragedy of Hamlet, I think 
it is, Shakespeare says: 

[ 10] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

"But good, oh, my brother, 

Do not as some ungracious pastors do, 

Point us the steep and thorny road to 
heaven, 

While, like some puffed and reckless liber- 
tine, 

Himself the primrose path of dalliance 
treads." 

And in his novel, "The Virginian," 
Owen Wister makes the cowboy say, 
"I can stand a middlin' doctor; I can 
stand a middlin' lawyer; but save me 
from a middlin' man of God." 

Now, I do not care whose words 
you like, those of the poet or those of 
the novelist. It is not their words 
but their thought which I seek to 
bring home to you. In what they say 
they speak not for themselves, but 
for the whole world of folks. The 
world demands more of a minister 
than it does of any other man. They 
do not want us to walk alongside. 

[ 11 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

They want us to walk ahead. They 
do not want us idealists in the pulpit 
and opportunists outside. And in 
their demand the w r orld of folks is 
right, or at least they are justified. 
They ask more of men of God be- 
cause we claim to be men of God. 
We assume to stand for more than 
any other class of people. "Ministers 
to be as good as other classes of men 
must be better than they. No other 
set of men make such assumptions or 
bind themselves to such high ideals. 
A lawyer, when admitted to the bar, 
does not promise to obey the Ten 
Commandments. A physician, on re- 
ceiving his diploma, does not agree to 
practice the Sermon on the Mount. 
Being an editor involves no assump- 
tion of fidelity to Gospel principles, 
and merchants do not enter business 
announcing to the world their pur- 
[ 12 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

pose to give their life a ransom for 
many." "If, therefore/' continues 
Charles E. Jefferson, "if, therefore, 
both in spirit and conduct ministers 
as a body were not superior to every 
other class of men, they would be a 
disgrace to their profession and a 
scandal to the world." 

Contrary to the opinion of the 
world, the ministry is full of moral 
perils. It has pitfalls on every hand 
and byw r ays on every side. There is 
a widespread impression that the life 
of a minister is one of sheltered se- 
curity. It is a sort of quiet, land- 
locked bay beside the stormy sea. 
And of all impressions of which I 
ever heard, that is the farthest from 
the truth. The life of a minister of 
the gospel is one of storm and stress. 
The work of the ministry creates 
temptations of which others do not 

[ 13 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

dream. There is the temptation to 
become hardened and perfunctory in 
the handling of holy things. I had 
not been in the ministry a year before 
I made the horrifying discovery that 
a man can be proclaiming the evan- 
gel, burying the dead, praying with 
the dying, and yet be slowly losing 
his own personal hold on God, There 
is the temptation to be worldly in 
mingling with worldly people. "The 
world offers itself as a climate, and 
we may be led into accepting it as 
the atmosphere of our lives." I re- 
member with grief a number of good 
men who, starting to bring others up 
to Christ, have ended by descending 
to them. Yes, and there is the ever 
present temptation to the baser and 
more bestial of sins. There is the lust 
of the flesh as well as the lust of the 
eyes and the pride of life. The peril 
[ 14 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

to the minister's moral manhood :'s 
more deadly than the world has ever 
dreamed. It inheres in the very na- 
ture of his work, in the tasks given 
him to do. The preacher's very emo- 
tional intensity often brings him to 
the point of danger. The pastor's 
work leads him into situations where 
moral wrong-doing is made easy. 
Sometimes he is cast headlong to the 
very center of the crucible. Some- 
times he is compelled to withstand 
the subtlest assaults on the citadel of 
his soul. One day Jowett and Hugh 
Price Hughes were walking the 
streets of London. Long did they 
talk of their common tasks and tri- 
umphs. Suddenly, however, the im- 
petuous Hughes stopped and grasped 
his confrere by the arm. "Jowett!" 
he cried, " Jowett! The evangelical 
preacher is always on the brink of an 
[15 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

abyss." Hugh Price Hughes was 
everlastingly right. His cry was a 
cry of warning and appeal to every 
man who dares to preach the gos- 
pel. The abyss may differ at differ- 
ent times, it differs with different 
men, but its yawning maw is ever 
there. 

So here are the world's stern de- 
mands and the world's bitter tempta- 
tions. Together they constitute a 
moral challenge, and enhance the im- 
portance of our task. The most pite- 
ous spectacle in this world of trage- 
dies is the man of God who goes 
wrong. It is he who in seeking to 
help others has become a moral cast- 
away himself. Verily it were better 
for him that he never had been born. 
The greatest farce in all the world is 
for a man to try to be a "middlin' ' 
man of God. It is the greatest farce 
C 16 1 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

because he fails in the very thing he 
seeks to do. In the immortal words 
of Henry Ward Beecher, "You can't 
pray cream and live skim milk." In 
the tart words of another modern, 
"You can't eat garlic in private with- 
out smelling of it in public." But 
the sublimest thing in all this world 
is the minister of pure and spotless 
life. It is he whose soul is an open 
book, and whose ministry is spiritu- 
ally antiseptic. It is he who creates 
a climate of good, and is really in 
the world but not of it. It is he who 
adorns the gospel by a splendid and 
holy manhood. It was such a minis- 
try that made Henry Drummond be- 
loved by a boundless host. When he 
entered a room it was said that the 
temperature seemed changed. It 
was such a ministry that enshrined 
Bishop Ninde in a thousand, thou- 
[ 17 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

sand hearts. It is such a ministry to 
which we are called by the Living 
God. 

The man of God should be a man 
of heroic spirit. It is his to fill up 
that which is behind of the sufferings 
of Christ. 

Some time ago a so-called leader 
in our Church delivered an address 
on the ministry. It was not mine to 
hear the address, but I did read an 
abstract of it. In it he pleaded for 
young men to go into the ministry 
because it is a good practical profes- 
sion. One of our own Advocates 
cites him as uttering these extraordi- 
nary appeals: "A minister has his 
place in life made for him. He re- 
ceives more salary to begin his pro- 
fession with than do lawyers or doc- 
tors. He does n't have to sit around 
waiting for his work to begin. And 
[ 18 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

then, in addition to all the rest, he is 
always sufficiently paid to live well." 
Now, I w r onder if this leader has 
not unwittingly touched the weak 
spot in the leadership of our time. 
If the ministry is weak and flabby, it 
is because it is unheroic. It asks of 
us no definite sacrifice, and seems to 
include no great hardship. Theolog- 
ical students are often guaranteed a 
living while preparing for their work. 
District superintendents advertise for 
men and offer alluring salaries as 
bait. While the smell of the lamp is 
still on their sermons, young preach- 
ers are invited to wealthy parishes 
and asked to become chaplains-in- 
ordinary to a few rich families. The 
Conferences are working for the in- 
crease of salaries, and the Church as 
a whole is struggling to see that the 
veterans are adequately pensioned. 

[ 19 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

In the meantime the work of the 
Kingdom languishes, and everybody 
knows it. Membership increases 
while spiritual momentum becomes 
gradually and beautifully less. The 
sense of sin is gone, and the sense of 
responsibility with it. Too often the 
Church is indifferent to the world, 
and the world is indifferent to the 
Church. I confess to a desire to 
laugh when I hear a roomful of 
Christians sing, " Stand up, stand up 
for Jesus," and then stick so tight to 
their seats that you could n't get them 
up with a derrick. I confess to a 
smile when a row of comfortable, 
conservative, self -contented gentle- 
men and ladies stand up and sing, 
" Onward, Christian soldiers, march- 
ing as to war," and then go home to 
loll in their parlors while hell yawns 
at their very doors. I confess to a 
[ 20 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

sob when I see the thousands who are 
alienated from the Church, who not 
only never darken its doors but sneer 
at its claims and pretensions. 

Time was when a call to the Meth- 
odist ministry was synonymous with 
a summons to the heroic. It offered 
a man hardship in place of ease, a 
battlefield for a home, abuse and per- 
secution for a salary, and short ra- 
tions most of the time. It sent him 
where he was n't wanted, and usually 
where he did n't want to go. He was 
ostracized by his kind, opposed by 
misguided Christians, and often ma- 
ligned by those to whom he pro- 
claimed the evangel. 

Some years ago it was mine to 
know a real Methodist preacher. In 
early manhood he was called to 
preach, and forsook all to respond. 
He offered himself as an itinerant 
[ 21 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

when that word meant what it said. 
They sent him out on the trackless 
prairies, and he went with a song on 
his lips. Like Abram he went forth, 
not knowing whither he was going. 
He roamed those wastes in a ceaseless 
quest for immortal souls. He was 
baked in summer and frozen in win- 
ter, and blown about by the winds all 
the year. For some time his salary 
was nothing, paid in advance. Then 
it was raised to three or four hundred, 
and he was left to raise it. "He did 
double work on half rations and quar- 
ter pay." For forty years he plodded 
on without a groan or a whine. In 
some unaccountable way he saved a 
few hundred dollars. Then he bought 
a little farm in Vermont, and tried to 
avoid becoming a mendicant and a 
burden on the Church. He worked 
his farm for a living, and continued 
[ 22 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

serving God for fun. He preached 
in a little chapel out at Forgotten 
Corners. He rode over the hills to 
beseech men to be reconciled to God. 
He went in and out of the homes of 
the village like a benediction on two 
legs. He had little, but was im- 
mensely rich and happy with that 
little. And then one day God called 
again, and he answered, "Here am I." 
He slipped out with a smile on his 
face, and joined the ranks of the re- 
deemed. And everybody for miles 
around came and bared their heads 
and wept while they laid the worn 
body to rest. 

Oh, he was a glorious man, an am- 
bassador of Christ indeed! I would 
walk barefoot, if need be, ten miles 
to behold his like again. 

Has the need for a life like that 
really gone from our religion? Is 
[ 23 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

there no longer a call for genuine 
self-effacement? Has a something 
else come to take the place of the 
heroic and the sublime? In fact, does 
this age of plenty and power require 
that its ministers be simply well-edu- 
cated, tactful, and well-dressed? 

Now I have come to where I 
would not utter a wrong syllable. 
I would not give a false impression 
for all the wealth of the Indies. 
The laborer is worthy of his hire, 
and the Church should care for its 
servants. The measure of sacrifice 
is not what a man gets, but what 
he could be getting at some other 
business, and what he is doing with 
what he has. When McCabe was be- 
ing belabored by the General Confer- 
ence for taking pay for his lectures, 
he said, "I wonder if they knew that 
every dollar I receive in that way 
[ 24 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

is given to weak and struggling 
Churches?" I would not give a dis- 
torted translation of the demands of 
our Lord. But I would re-utter the 
eternal law upon which all progress 
is based. 

The law of vicarious suffering is 
the law of service for all time. It 
w r as true in the age in which it was 
given. It is true in the age in which 
we live. Without shedding of blood 
there is no remission of sins. Neither 
is there anything else. There is no 
Church, no gospel, no Kingdom, no 
conquest. And that law is woven in- 
extricably with the work of the Chris- 
tian ministry. There, above every 
other place or profession, it must find 
its reincarnation. "The gospel of a 
broken heart demands the ministry of 
broken hearts. As soon as we cease 
to bleed we cease to bless. When our 
[ 25 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

sympathy loses its pang we can no 
longer be servants of the passion" — 
in those other and most wonderful 
words of Dr. Jowett's, "To be in the 
sacrificial succession, our sympathy 
must be a passion, our intercession 
must be a groaning, our beneficence 
must be a sacrifice, and our service 
must be a martyrdom. In everything 
there must be the shedding of blood." 
In the Church of to-day there are 
those leaders who illumine the glory 
of this principle. Their lives are in- 
vested for the race, their strength is 
gladly spent for their fellow-men. 
Years ago General Gordon wrote to 
Sir Richard Burton: "You know the 
hopelessness of such a task as Afri- 
can missions till you find a St. Paul 
or a St. John. Their representatives 
nowadays want so much per year and 
a contract." 

[ 26 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

I resent that moral slap in the face, 
and claim that it is n't altogether so. 
It is about as true as all sweeping 
statements are. We may not have a 
St. Paul, but we do have a towering 
Grenfell. We have him who says, 
"Do n't pity me. I 'm happiest when 
I 'm in Labrador." We have a Dan 
Crawford in Africa itself, who can 
live white on no salary in order that 
he may think black. We have Bash- 
ford, who chooses China, and Stuntz, 
who says, "Send me to South Amer- 
ica." Yes, and we have a host of the 
anonymous whose names are un- 
known and unheard, men who are 
wearing out their lives in the con- 
gested parts of our cities, men who 
are asking that they be sent to the 
hardest fields and neediest places, 
men who are toiling in obscure cor- 
ners with never a whimper or com- 
[ 27 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

plaint. Some years ago one of God's 
great noblemen came to my study to 
see me. I did n't recognize him at 
first, because his regalia was thread- 
bare and worn. He was one of our 
men who tramp the Iron Range in 
search of souls for the Kingdom. 
He told me of his trials, and I most 
foolishly tried to extend my sym- 
pathy. 

"Why, you needn't be sorry for 
me," he said. "I 'm the most wonder- 
fully blessed man in the world. I 'm 
a country preacher, and I expect to 
remain so all the days of my life. 
But I would not change places with 
any man in the world." And as he 
said this a light shone in his face, and 
a halo seemed resting on his head. 

That is the spirit which must en- 
ter into us all. We become great 
only as we are caught in the sweep 
[ 28 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

of a great task. The enterprise 
committed to us is the greatest ever 
given to man. The obstacles are co- 
lossal, the competition is hot enough 
to burn. And no tin soldiers with 
wooden leaders will ever win the bat- 
tle. The frontiers of the plains are 
disappearing, the frontiers of the 
slums have come to stay. The city is 
challenging the Church. The country 
is calling for the heroic. The whole 
time, the whole situation, cry for the 
reinterpretation and the reincarnation 
of the spirit of heroic self-efface- 
ment. We may not need men to 
go into the flames. We do need 
them to seek the hard fields. We 
do n't ask that you burn at the 
stake. We ask that you burn out 
for God. We may not need men to 
forego their salaries. We woefully 
need men who forget them. "Our 
[ 29 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

enterprise is not a pastime. It is a 
crusade." A while ago I stood beside 
the grave of Adam Clarke. And I 
saw anew that seal which has been 
placed upon it. It is not a crown or 
a cross. It is a candle burned down 
to the socket. 

That is the seal that must be upon 
us in our ministry. We become real 
leaders only as we give all — all in 
vicarious suffering, all in heroic 
service. 

"Count thy life by loss instead of gain, 

Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine 
poured forth, 

For love's strength standeth in love's sac- 
rifice, 

And whoso suffers most hath most to 
give." 

Again, the man of God must be 
a man of fearless loyalty to his con- 
victions. He must be obedient to 
[ 30 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

the heavenly vision which God in 
His goodness vouchsafes him, obedi- 
ent at whatever cost to him and his 
ecclesiastical future. In a superb 
chapter on the sin of impatience, a 
modern religious leader says many 
wise things. He says things which 
every man needs, especially in his 
earlier years in the work. Ours has 
been a ministry enamored of the im- 
mediate. We want the Kingdom of 
God to come, and we want it to come 
at once. In the stirring words of 
Emerson, we are constantly wanting 
to pull souls up by the roots to see 
if they are really growing. And in 
sincere warning against a tactless 
haste, this leader flings out some 
frank utterances. "It is ours to bring 
down the New Jerusalem," he says, 
"but it is not ours to bring it down 
in such a hurry that we break the 

[ 31 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

heads of the saints." I say his words 
are words of wisdom, and worthy of 
serious thought. A man can mistake 
a bellicose temperament for enthusi- 
astic zeal for the Kingdom. But I 
say now that this danger is not the 
one that crouches at our doors. 

The outstanding fact in modern 
life is the gulf between the world and 
the Church. No comforting statis- 
tics can obliterate the fact, juggle 
them as we will. Some time ago 
President Fitch of Andover spoke 
on the religious problems of our time. 
And he touched on this tragic fact. 
He said that there are to-day three 
distinct classes who are alienated 
from the Church. There are the in- 
tellectuals, the men who do much of 
the thinking. There are the social 
idealists, the revolutionists in things 
social and economic. And there are 
[32 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

the wage-earners, the men who work 
with their hands. Now, President 
Fitch may have been brutally frank, 
but he w^as also startlingly correct. 
He put his finger on the wound in the 
modern religious world. And he 
pointed out a condition that is preg- 
nant of tremendous disaster. I sup- 
pose I have a typical Methodist 
Church. We do have the rich and the 
poor, folks of all kinds and stations. 
And yet I confess to you to-day that 
I could count the real laboring men, 
the men who work with their hands 
for weekly wages, on the fingers of 
my two hands. Ten in sixteen hun- 
dred and fifty is about the proportion. 
The insistent claim of the world is 
that this serious condition is the fault 
of the Church. The intellectuals say 
that they will not come because of 
the bootless exactions of our outworn 
[ 33 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

creeds. The socialists say that they 
will not come because the Church of 
to-day is run by the capitalistic class. 
And the laboring men say they will 
not come because we are rich and ex- 
clusive. We belong not to all the 
people, but to those who can aff ord it. 
And in their accusations all these 
classes involve the ministry. Some 
years ago, while meeting with a group 
of friends, President Harper, of the 
University of Chicago, said in a ban- 
tering way, "I have come to the con- 
clusion that a man can not be a popu- 
lar preacher and an honest man at 
the same time." Some time ago a 
theological student, a friend, said: 
"You ought not to go into the min- 
istry. You ought to go where you 
can be free. No man can be in the 
ministry and be his own man." These 
are the things that are said, and more 
[ 34 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

often this is felt. The tide of life is 
ebbing away from the shore of organ- 
ized Christianity, and those going out 
with the tide put the blame on the 
Church. 

Now let us dare to be honest in our 
endeavor to meet the issue. If one 
count in the indictment is correct, we 
are the men who ought to know it. 
It is not ours to cry, "Wolf! wolf!" 
when there is no wolf. But it is ours 
to face the facts. 

The Church is too often afraid to 
slough off the accretions of tradition. 
Orthodoxy, instead of vitality, is too 
often our basis of examination for 
entrance into the Kingdom. We talk 
about the dynamic theory of truth, 
and yet we cling to the static. We 
thumbnail the revelation of God, and 
would run religious experience in a 
mold. 

[ 35 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

Once more I aver my faith in 
Christ as the Savior of mankind. 
I believe in God the Father Al- 
mighty* and Jesus Christ His only 
Son, our Lord. I believe that, rightly 
understood, it is the blood that makes 
Him our Savior. But I don't believe 
in hanging the redemptive process on 
a lot of non-essential, unimportant 
theological pegs. I do n't believe in 
putting bars at the door of the King- 
dom which the Lord Christ Himself 
would throw down, and in that con- 
viction I follow in the footsteps of 
our father in the gospel, John Wes- 
ley. 

The Church is too often controlled 
by financial considerations. The rule 
of the well-to-do is not a deliberate 
decision. It is an evolution. Like 
Topsy, our Church bosses are not 
born ; they just grow. Unconsciously 
[ 36 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

we defer to the man of commanding 
personality and power. In the strik- 
ing words of William North Rice, 
"There is a subtle logic of the hopes 
and fears that insidiously smuggles 
its conclusions into the realm of the 
intellect." 

The Church is yet afraid to dare 
the whole teaching of Jesus, to drive 
home with unerring hand the moral 
exactions of the Master. It leaves 
men in places of leadership who never 
should be there at all. It permits 
practices and conditions which are a 
stench in the nostrils of God. It ac- 
cepts the teachings of Jesus and di- 
lutes them to the taste. It is content 
to be a hospital when it ought to be 
an army on the march. It hacks 
away at the limbs when it ought to 
strike at the roots. 

Some years ago I read Elizabeth 
[ 37 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

Stuart Phelps 5 book, "A Singular 
Life." Some years ago I read, too, 
that much-talked-of book, "Robert 
Elsmere." And only yesterday did 
I finish that book of which the Nation 
is talking, "The Inside of the Cup." 
They are all crude in their theology 
and in some of their ecclesiasticism. 
They all err in some important par- 
ticulars. Robert Elsmere was a fool 
to leave the Church because of new 
light. And John Hodder was wrong 
in identifying Socialism with Chris- 
tianity. But they are all tremendous 
in that they point out the subtlest 
peril of the ministry, and in that they 
show us the only way that we as men 
of God can grip the world. The peril 
is not that we won't be orthodox, but 
that we won't be honest. It is not 
that our sermons will be doctrinal, 
but that they won't be vital. It is 
[ 38 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

not that we will sell our convictions, 
but that we will unconsciously lose 
them. "The world offers itself as 
a climate, and we may be led into 
accepting it as the atmosphere of our 
lives." In "The Inside of the Cup" 
you remember John Hodder, the 
preacher, is awakened. He sees that 
the Church itself must be changed in 
its ideals, and with grim determina- 
tion he goes to face Eldon Parr. But 
at the door of the mansion he pauses 
in actual fear. He is afraid of him- 
self in the air he is to breathe. He 
is afraid, not that he will be cowardly, 
but that he will be overwhelmed. He 
fears "lest the changed atmosphere 
of the banker's presence might de- 
flect his own hitherto clear perception 
of true worth." And John Hodder 
here stands for every man who 
preaches. 

[ 39 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

One day Frederick Robertson came 
to a crisis in his own religious experi- 
ence. No longer could he believe or 
proclaim as he had been taught. So 
he left his pulpit and people and 
sought the mountain fastnesses; and 
there he found faith that lifted him 
to heavenly places in Jesus Christ. 
He knew, however, that to be true 
he must also suffer. But he said: 
"Henceforth I expect to stand alone. 
But I am not afraid of a solitude 
which His presence peoples with a 
crowd." One day Lorenzo the Mag- 
nificent said : "I am dying. Bring me 
that honest friar. I do n't want those 
who have said what I liked. I want 
him who said what was true." And 
they brought to the room the lean and 
gaunt Girolamo Savonarola, and the 
king said, " Savonarola, confess me 
and give me absolution." And, true 
[ 40 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

to the last, the friar said: "I will do 
so on three conditions — that you con- 
fess your dependence on the mercy of 
God, that you order your sons to pay 
back your ill-gotten gains, and that 
you restore to the people of Florence 
the liberties which you took from 
them." And Lorenzo the king re- 
fused, and the faithful friar walked 
out. 

One day young Henry Ward 
Beecher was made pastor of a Church 
in Indiana. And he found that the 
subject of slavery was tabooed in the 
pulpits of that section. They might 
preach of the sins of the Jews, but 
not of the sin of the South. And 
young Beecher began to touch it by 
means of illustration. And then he 
went farther, and touched that open 
sore of civilization. And after his 
sermon one of the men came up to 
[ 41 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

him and said, "Mr. Beecher, if you 
preach against slavery, six of our 
most prominent families will leave 
this Church." 

And that young preacher, with his 
future before him, lifted himself up 
in his might and said, "Give me their 
names now, please, that I may give 
them their letters at once." 

One day the Wesleyan Church for- 
got the spirit of Wesley. William 
Booth wanted to go out and work 
among the social outcasts. They 
wanted to tie him down and run him 
in a mold. In pious stupidity they 
said, "You can do just this and this." 
And a little woman in the gallery 
rose up and cried, "Never, William! 
Never!" And William Booth took 
his hat and went out to found the 
Salvation Army. 

Those were supreme moments in 
[ 42 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

the lives of those mighty men. They 
were moments upon whose issues 
hung the destiny of countless human 
souls. Such dramatic moments may 
be ours, and again they may not. 
But ours it is to choose the higher 
or lower road, the road of slavish 
subserviency or the road of con- 
science and God, the road to the 
greatest power, or the road to im- 
potence and barren labor. Let us 
fail not when the test comes ; fail not 
as God is our God. Do not be a 
casuist in the pulpit and an oppor- 
tunist outside. Do not do your pas- 
toral work from the pulpit, but 
preach the whole counsel of God. 
Preach it in tenderness and love, 
but preach it direct to men's souls. 
Preach it not destructively, but con- 
structively and wisely. Be the slave 
of no man or class, but be the servant 
[ 43 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

of all. Go forward with the Chris- 
tian program though you walk the 
way alone. Compromises you must 
make, but make them always toward 
the goal. Tact and patience you 
must have, but both must be servants 
of fidelity. Never take a backward 
step for considerations of self-inter- 
est. Never let personal friendship 
blind your eyes to the truth, or stay 
your feet from the path of duty. 
You can trust the truth. You can 
trust the best in men. Above all else, 
you can trust God. Keep in touch 
with all classes and get out of sym- 
pathy with none. Let your con- 
science be captive to God, and your 
wisdom be from above. If need be, 
and some time it may, take your 
whole ecclesiastical future and lay it 
on the altar of duty. Risk all in loy- 
alty to conviction and in one vast ven- 
[ 44 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

ture of faith. Renounce! Renounce 
if need be all that makes life dear. 
And then the world will heed, for it 
will hear again the voice of the Christ, 
the call of Almighty God. In the 
urgent words which came to me long, 
long ago: 

" Be true to all truth the world denies, 
Not tongue-tied to its gilded sin, 
Not always right in all men's eyes, 
But faithful to the light within." 

The man of God must be a lover 
of men. The salvation of souls and 
the restoration of the race must be 
his real meat and drink. 

This is a tremendous age. It is 
tremendous in its radical changes in 
human life and thought. By many it 
has been called an age of transition. 
I prefer to call it an age of fermen- 
tation. The difference between this 
[ 45 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

and the centuries gone is not one of 
mere mechanical change. It is rather 
one of germinating seeds, of opening 
and bursting life. Modern science 
has laid to rest a thousand pet tradi- 
tions and theories. It has altered not 
so much our knowledge as our whole 
method of thinking. Henry Van 
Dyke says that the coat of arms of 
this generation should be an interro- 
gation-point rampant. He never 
breathed a more trenchant phrase, ex- 
cept when he said, "In times of ad- 
versity prepare for prosperity." We 
are holding up everything in the 
heavens above, and the earth beneath, 
and the waters under the earth, and 
demanding of them self -explanation. 
We are sounding the depths of truth 
and testing the foundations of being. 
Modern invention has wrought as 
great change in our living as pure 
[ 46 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

science has wrought in our thinking. 
The one extended the life of the 
earth. The other diminished its size. 
God, through man, has made of the 
seas a highway, and caused the desert 
to blossom as a rose. We have all 
moved into the same dooryard. The 
w r oiid is so small that we learn before 
breakfast what struck it the night 
before. Somebody said to me, "Is 
your Church a large one?" "Rather," 
I answered, "rather. My front seats 
are in New England and my back 
seats in the Rocky Mountains." At 
one service we knew of folks direct 
from thirteen States, Canada, Eng- 
land, and India. A man can stand in 
a room in New York and talk with 
his son in Chicago. He speaks at 
two o'clock in the afternoon, and his 
son hears him at one the same after- 
noon. I do n't wonder that when an 
[ 47 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

Irishman received a cablegram from 
England, he looked at the hour at 
which it was sent, then he looked at 
the clock, and then he said, " There is 
a miracle if there ever was one. This 
happened before it came to pass." 

Modern civilization has created 
conditions of which our forefathers 
knew nothing. Every great move- 
ment is pregnant of great disaster, 
and every age has its own peculiar 
perils. This age has problems and 
perils never known before. "The 
solidarity of the race" is a phrase 
that has literally been born again. 
This is a social age in the largest 
sense of that term. The sins of to- 
day are corporate sins, and the sor- 
rows are aggregated sorrows. A fire 
in a Negro's hut in the South means 
a whole city in ruins. The question 
of the Lord's day in the city, with 
[ 48 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

fresh air and green grass miles away, 
is vastly different from the question 
of the Lord's day when a man could 
step over his door-sill and be in the 
open. The matter of moral piracy 
when men scuttle cities is vastly dif- 
ferent from what it was when men 
scuttled ships. We do n't murder 
with a bludgeon any more, we mur- 
der with an adulterant. Evil has or- 
ganized for business, and the man 
highest up is bound by thongs to the 
man w r ho is lowest down. And so 
the phrase and fact of social service 
have been incorporated in vocabulary 
and life. The brotherhood of man 
has taken on a very broad and prac- 
tical meaning. It is ours not merely 
to arrest the drunkard. It is ours to 
arrest the saloon. Our task is not 
simply to reform the scarlet woman, 
but to smite the social evil, and smite 
[ 49 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

hard. The laborers must be given 
justice as well as the offer of salva- 
tion. Christianity in the heart de- 
mands large fruitage in social rela- 
tions. A man can not be a John the 
Baptist on the official board and a 
Judas Iscariot in his business. Chris- 
tianity is very thorough, or the term 
has lost its significance. It is honesty 
in business, purity in life, the spirit 
of service, and all by the constrain- 
ing love of Jesus Christ. Those are 
the lights and shades of modern civ- 
ilization in this new-born twentieth 
century. 

In this stupendous and complex 
age the Church has just one task. It 
may have many duties, but it can 
have just one task. And I dare 
aver that that task is not the bring- 
ing in of a new social order. The 
danger of the Church of God to- 
[ 50 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

day is not that it will attempt too 
little, but that it will attempt too 
much. It is not the danger of nar- 
rowness, but the danger of scattera- 
tion. The preacher of to-day is in 
peril of becoming a mere teacher of 
ethics. The pulpit is in peril of be- 
coming a public rostrum for the dis- 
cussion of a thousand questions of 
general interest but subordinate im- 
portance. "A lot of men are ham- 
mering hard, but when they get 
through we find they have only been 
driving brass-headed tacks." The 
Church is in peril of becoming a mere 
social center, without an appeal to the 
conscience and a consequent change 
in character. And the peril of the 
Christian life to-day is that, in the 
lives and minds of many, it w r ill be- 
come a mere aggregation of humani- 
tarian activities. 

[ 51 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

The Lord Jesus Christ incurred 
obloquy and death because He would 
do just one thing. He went about 
telling men about God when they 
wanted a new social order. The in- 
tellectual thought Him insipid, and 
the reformers called Him a fool. 
But that arbiter, Time, has decided 
the case in favor of the Master Man. 
Those little stories of God have be- 
come leaves of healing for all peoples. 
That foolish death on the cross has 
become source and secret of all prog- 
ress. Out of that handful of follow- 
ers came a Mary Magdalene and a 
St. John. And out of that slow- 
going process have come a new 
heaven and a new earth. 

We are wonderfully smart, but 

we can not improve on the Christ . 

We go backward, not forward, when, 

in our haste, we try to run ahead 

[ 52 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

of God Almighty. "Only the 
Golden Rule of Christ can give 
us the golden age of man." And 
only the twice-born man can give us 
the Golden Rule of Christ. The 
Christian minister is not an Old Tes- 
tament reformer. He is the apostle 
of the New Testament redemption. 
His message is not simply social re- 
construction. It is repentance and 
regeneration. His first work is not 
to bring in new laws, but rather to 
bring out new lives. He is a witness, 
and his constant cry is, "Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
be saved." The great business of the 
Church is not to build new tenements, 
but rather to build new men. It is 
not to raise men's wages. It is to 
teach men, so that they can not for- 
get it, that the wages of sin is death. 
In fact, the final problem of the 
[ 53 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

world is the old black problem of sin. 
Not, if you please, of evil, but of 
individual personal sin. And the 
only adequate remedy for sin is re- 
demption in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
It is that which makes weak men 
strong, sick men well, and bad men 
good. It is that which leads nations 
out of darkness into light. It is that 
which fuses a man and flings him 
out to fight sin and serve God. It 
is that and only that which can give 
us a new social order, for it is that 
and only that which can bring in the 
Kingdom of God. And the Church 
of God is to make such men and send 
them out to live and serve. 

And now let me say the one last 
thing on this all-important subject. 
In this great enterprise the only 
leader for the Church is a genuine 
lover of men. It is he who cares for 
[ 54 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

men's souls, and cares till he can not 
sleep. It is he who makes everything 
bend toward the one work of getting 
men saved. 

In the new edition of John Wes- 
ley's Journal I find this naive entry: 
"On Thursday, the 20th, I set out. 
The next afternoon I stopped a little 
at Newport Pagnell, and then rode 
on till I overtook a serious man, with 
whom I immediately fell into conver- 
sation. He presently gave me to 
know what his opinions were, there- 
fore I said nothing to contradict him. 
He was quite uneasy to know whether 
I held the doctrine of the decrees as 
he did. But I told him over and 
over we had better keep to practical 
things, lest w r e should be angry at 
one another. And so we did for two 
miles, till he caught me unawares and 
dragged me into the dispute before 
[ 55 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

I knew where I was. He then grew 
warmer and warmer; told me I was 
rotten at heart, and supposed I was 
one of John Wesley's followers. I 
told him, 'No, I am John Wesley 
himself/ upon which he would gladly 
have run away outright. But being 
the better mounted of the two, I kept 
close to his side, and endeavored to 
show him his heart till he came into 
the street of Northampton." 

Superb! Sublime! That is per- 
sonal work, and there a lover of men. 

Some time ago I sat and talked 
with a district superintendent in the 
West. He was deploring the inertia 
of the Church to-day, and trying to 
find the cause. At last he said: 

"I wish I had the same faith and 
fearless persistence that my preacher- 
father had. He feared neither man 
nor devil, official board nor mob. On 
[ 56 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

one of his charges the work lan- 
guished, and the church was spiritu- 
ally dead. So he called his official 
board together and said, 'What shall 
we do?' 

' 'Oh,' they said, 'there is nothing 
to do. Things are as they are.' 

' 'I want a series of meetings,' he 
said. 

"They replied: 'We are behind in 
the finances this year. We can't af- 
ford what they would cost.' 

" 'All right,' he said. 'If I can't 
have a series of services with you, then 
I '11 have a series of services without 
you.' 

"And he did. On Sunday morn- 
ing he announced from the pulpit, 
'Special services will be held in this 
church every evening this week ex- 
cept Saturday.' 

"Monday evening he and the jani- 
[ 57 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

tor were the only ones present. When 
he asked the janitor to lead in prayer 
the man fled, and he was left alone. 
And alone he met every night that 
week. He built the fire and lighted 
the lights. Then he read the Scrip- 
tures, sang a hymn, prayed, and went 
home. 

"The next Sunday morning he an- 
nounced from the pulpit, 'Special 
services will be continued in this 
church five evenings this week.' And 
they were. On Monday evening a 
group of young men heard him hold- 
ing forth. 

" 'Come on/ said one, 'let 's go in. 
There 's an old fool in here who is 
holding meetings with himself. Let 's 
go in and see how he does it.' They 
went in. He preached the gospel. 
One of those young men arose and 
came to God. The next night there 
[ 58 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

were twenty there, including some of 
the official board. The next night 
the church was filled, and for six con- 
secutive weeks that old man preached 
Christ, and a hundred and fifty came 
to God." 

Years ago a plain Methodist 
preacher fell in love with the world's 
unlovely. In his own picturesque 
phrase, he came to where he actually 
hungered for hell. He pushed out 
into the midst of it in the East End 
of London. For days he stood in 
those seething streets, muddy with 
men and women. He drank it all in 
and loved it because of the souls he 
saw. One night he went home and 
said to his wife, "Darling, I have 
given myself, I have given you and 
the children, to the service of those 
sick souls." And she smiled and took 
his hand, and together they knelt and 
[ 59 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

prayed. That was the beginning of 
the Salvation Army, of the great 
work of William Booth. 

You tire of illustrations. I as- 
sure you that I do not. Would I 
could go on hanging stars in the 
sky, that you might not miss your 
way. After all, the work of the 
ministry is not a work at all. It is 
a holy passion, consuming, over- 
whelming, sublime. It is the passion 
that made Paul immortal and John 
Knox the human savior of Scotland. 
It is the passion that set Whitefield 
on fire and flung Wesley out into the 
fields. It is the passion that sent 
David Brainerd to his knees and kept 
him there until a new day dawned. It 
is the passion that gives no rest till 
we see men made new by the grace of 
God through faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

[ 60 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

This is the plain message which 
the minister needs to-day. To us 
has been committed the task of in- 
terpreting God to men. To us 
has been given the yet holier task 
of bringing men to God. We must 
not, we can not, fail in the glori- 
ous work entrusted to us. It calls 
for our highest endeavor, for the in- 
vestment of every talent. It lays 
upon our shoulders the heaviest bur- 
den ever borne by mortal man. The 
doing of that task tests a man in 
every last fiber of his being. There 
are times of despondency and times 
of despair, for the flesh is weak in- 
deed. But the joy of fidelity and 
loving service impoverishes man's vo- 
cabulary to express. To have the 
aged and infirm declare that you 
have brought heaven nearer; to have 
strong men say, " You put heart into 
[ 61 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

me for the heavy work of life;" to 
have children say, "You led me to 
Jesus and made me to know life in 
God" — and then to be able to say, 
"It is not I; it is my Master!" 

No other being ever knew what it 
was to taste joy like that. The fields 
are ripening to-day for the largest 
harvest of souls ever gathered. The 
race is ready for a new proclamation 
of the unsearchable riches of Christ. 
The leaders in science are preparing 
the way for those with the higher mes- 
sage. Philosophy cries out with un- 
erring voice of the spiritual basis of 
life. Lodge and Eucken and Berg- 
son clear the way for the gospel. The 
world's unrest may be the forerunner 
of the glorious Gospel of Rest. Time 
is on our side. God is with us. Go 
out, then, to your mighty task in the 
strength of the God of our fathers. 
[ 62 ] 



THE MINISTER AS A MAN 

Be filled with the strength of Him 
whose you are and whom you serve. 
Let this mind be in you which was in 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Forget all 
else in the unutterable privilege of 
knowing and being like Him. Sur- 
render every corner of your soul to 
His tender and loving dominion. 
And then it will be yours to behold 
heavenly conquests which we who are 
passing on prayed for but never 
knew. You will see, it may be, the 
kingdoms of this world become the 
Kingdom of Jesus Christ. 



[ 63] 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




017 075 823 7 



■ 



H 



